


Heaven on Earth

by mystery_deer



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Major character death but if you've seen San Junipero you know it ain't that bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_deer/pseuds/mystery_deer
Summary: “black mirrors san junipero but make it raymond and kevin” - RaykevinThis wasn't even a request I just saw this text post while scrolling through tumblr and went wild.
Relationships: Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Heaven on Earth

Kevin sat in the middle of the club, alone. He had been drawn in the music and lights like a moth to flame and stepped inside hoping to feel more a part of something. He’d seen television shows where something akin to that happened. The protagonist enters somewhere unfamiliar and slowly melts into the scenery. He looked down at the drink he hadn’t touched. He felt more alone than ever. If the club was a painting he was a coffee stain, part of the scene by accident. 

He left. He was sure that he would have felt a headache coming on if this were real. _Though if this were real I wouldn’t have even gone in._

“Frederick, kindly stop following me.”  
“Will you just _listen_ to me?”  
“I’m under no obligation to. You, however, are under obligation to leave people alone when they ask you four times.”

Kevin stopped and watched the confrontation brewing on the other side of the street. There were two men arguing in the way people who are self conscious about arguing in public do; Sharp, hushed whispers and weary eyes constantly looking for spectators.  
The taller man was strapping, with slicked-back hair and a strong chin. He looked like a bit of a greaser and his aesthetic clashed heavily with the man he was arguing with, who looked like he’d stepped right out of a discotech. 

“I’ll leave you alone if you just listen to me, that’s all I want for God’s sake!” Kevin smiled slightly, amused. No matter how young people made themselves look you could tell their age by the way they spoke. 

The disco man crossed the street, still being pursued by Frederick. Mid-rant he shouts “Land sakes!” and Kevin laughed. At his laughter The man with the afro turned and caught his eye. His laughter died in his mouth.

The man was beautiful.  
Half-lidded brown eyes that looked shiny under the street lights and smooth dark skin that looked invitingly wet under the thin material of his shirt that clung to him from the rain that was beginning to fall.

“Ah, Mark is that you?” Said the man, making a beeline straight for him. Kevin had a split second to think and he didn’t even need that.

“Oh, fancy seeing you here!” He said, waving. The man looked relieved that he was playing along, nodding slightly to show his gratitude. 

Frederick paused, crossing his arms. “Is this a friend of yours Ray?”  
“Obviously.”  
“Why haven’t I seen him before?”

“I just registered.” Kevin said. Once he committed to something he followed through with it wholeheartedly. “I never thought that I would enjoy San Junipero but I fell ill very suddenly and…” He looked up at the sky, squinting for effect and also because it was raining and rain was getting into his eyes. “I decided to give it a chance.”

Frederick bought it hook line and sinker, murmuring an apology and looking at the ground.  
“If you don’t mind I would like to have some time alone with my friend.”  
“...Fine. But next week-”  
“Yes, yes. I’m sure I’ll hear from you.” At that Ray turned decidedly away from Frederick and began walking down the street, leaving Kevin to follow him until they turned a corner. 

“Is he gone?” Kevin peeked back around the corner and saw the streets empty except for the occasional roving group of geriatric hooligans. 

“Yes.” Ray sighed with relief.  
“Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”  
“Why not just...I’m sure I heard there is a way to keep people from interacting with you if they are being...persistent.” He paused in thought. “I can’t recall the term. I’m not very tech-y.”

“I’m afraid I’m in the same boat.” Ray admitted, materializing an umbrella in his hand and opening it over the two of them. Kevin reached for it after a moment, noticing him struggling to keep it over Kevin’s head, who was decidedly taller than him - or at least taller than his avatar. 

“Thank you.” Ray’s hair was soft-looking and turned the rain into dew drops that ran down the side of his face. Kevin liked having Ray looking up at him, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He liked looking at his mouth. He liked it far too much. 

“I’m Raymond by the way.” He said, holding out a hand.  
“I’m Kevin.” He said, taking it. “It’s nice to meet you.”  
_______________

The second time Kevin saw Raymond he was leaning against a wall being talked at by a not very interesting retiree. The woman was blonde and sharp and Kevin could hear the tension between them through the brick. 

“I’m just not interested in speaking to him, Madeline.”  
“Well can you just suck it up and listen to him whine so I don’t have to?”  
“No.”  
“You’re making both of us suffer.”  
“Good.”  
“Raymond!”

Kevin waited until the woman turned away momentarily to speak to someone else to climb the wall and tap Raymond on the top of his head. He spun around, confusion quickly turning into joy at the sight of him. Kevin held a finger to his lips before offering him his hand to hoist him up the wall, using the other to make sure the other man’s weight didn’t send them both falling into the alley.

Raymond made it safely to the other side of the wall and just as Kevin landed beside him they both heard Madeline’s confused and annoyed “Oh what the hell!?” And took it as a sign to run as fast as they could in the other direction, both starting to laugh until they had to stop and breathe, clutching their sides. 

“Why did you run!?”  
“You started running first!” 

They laughed all the way to Raymond’s car, a flashy red model that Kevin thought suited the man perfectly. “You always seem to be saving me Kevin. My hero.” Kevin smirked and rolled his eyes.   
“I’m serious, I want to show you my appreciation. My house isn’t far from here would you like to…” He let the sentence trail off provocatively. An unfinished sentence was downright tantalizing. The minx.

Kevin nodded. “I would.”

Raymond’s place was a house near the beach but not on it. He didn’t like the sand but he loved the ocean and hearing it in the distance was soothing. “I like to go swimming sometimes. One day I even went during a storm. It was exhilarating.” 

Kevin sat down on the side of Raymond’s bed and watched him take off his coat, hanging it up in the closet. Kevin had replaced his wet clothes the moment he stepped through the door. Watching Raymond go through the tedium of putting his away was oddly relaxing.  
“Isn’t that dangerous?”  
“Not here.” Raymond said, joining him on the bed. “You can do anything here without fear. Fear of dying…” His eyes slowly eyed Kevin, stopping at his lips. “Fear of being judged.”

“You say that as if it’s worse than dying.”  
“Sometimes it is.” He brought a hand up to Kevin’s face, running his thumb over his lips and propping up his chin with his fist. Kevin felt a shiver run through him.

“And this?” Kevin asked, wrapping his own hand around Raymond’s wrist. “Is this a thrill for you?” 

Raymond’s smile spread across his face slowly and every passing second felt like a lifetime. He was in purgatory with heaven and hell eating at the corners of his vision. But in the center was Raymond and Raymond’s smile. “Baby, you’ve galvanized me.” He said, voice low. And then he leaned forward.

Raymond kissed like no one he’d ever known. Raymond kissed like- sparks. Electricity being shot into his veins he kissed like- butterflies in his stomach and chest and mouth and behind his eyes and he kissed like - heart beating so fast he couldn’t and he kissed like- heart beating mind racing so fast he couldn’t finish and he kissed-

“You alright?” Raymond asked, giving Kevin a concerned and amused look. Kevin stared.  
“Do that again.” So he did. And this time when he broke away Kevin pulled him back, kissing him until he fell over and then past that. Kissing him as they shed the rest of their clothes and kissing him as they complimented each other’s bodies and entered those bodies, kissing him as he moaned his name and kissing him in between moaning his. 

And then he was kissing him awake to say goodbye at 11:50 pm.  
“Come see me next week.”  
11:52  
“Where? Here?”  
11:54  
“Yes. I’ll make you something. We’ll talk.”  
11:56.  
“Is that a date?”  
11:58  
Raymond smiled slightly. Somewhere far away a wave crashed into the beach. Kevin held his hand and squeezed, wanting to commit the feeling to memory. Wanting for all the world to stay there with him and sleep and have breakfast and banter over coffee and read a book in silence and talk about nothing and talk about everything and kiss him one more time and if he could just have-

12:00 am.

And the house was empty once again.  
_______________

“What are you like?”  
“You know what I’m like.”  
“I mean out there, in the world.” Raymond tapped the side of his mug, thinking over Kevin’s question. They were standing on a bridge overlooking the beach. It was wonderfully mysterious at night and Kevin breathed in the smell of the ocean, fascinated with the ability to make it seem so real. It felt like there really was an endless sea out there - and maybe there was. Maybe the rest of the world was ocean and San Junipero was the sole oasis, that would certainly be poetic.

“I don’t believe I deviate very far from how I am in real life- aside from the obvious physical differences.” Raymond finally responds, taking a sip of tea. “I don’t see the appeal in pretending to be someone you’re not.” 

Kevin leaned against the railing and laughed. “You would hate me if we were to meet then.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Raymond asserted without hesitation. “I could never hate you.” Kevin felt his stomach tie itself in knots. Raymond made him feel things he hadn’t in years but this emotion was horribly familiar to him - guilt. 

“You say that now.”  
“I do. I will say it later as well.”  
“Hm.”  
“Tell me then, where are you?” Fear. White-hot fear that made his blood run cold.  
“I don’t...Raymond-”  
“Where are you? I’d like to visit.”  
“Raymond.”  
“I want to see you.”  
“You wouldn’t-”  
“I would like to decide that for myself.”

A pause. The only sound was the sea, rolling and crashing and moving beneath their feet. 

“New York, upstate.” Kevin held his breath, unsure of what he wanted more.  
“I live in Brooklyn, the trip will be good for me.” Raymond exhaled. His glasses were fogged up due to the steam from his mug. “I can’t wait to see you.”

Kevin stared at Raymond.  
“...Kevin?”  
“Don’t. Don’t...Don’t come.”  
“What?”  
“I-I’m a coward. You’ll see- Don’t come.” And then he was gone, leaving Raymond on the bridge alone. 

_______________

“So you met him through the program?” Asked Kevin’s wife Gertrude, leading Raymond slowly through the halls of their home as he kept stopping to look at pictures and was already a slow walker, leaning heavily on his cane. Raymond thought to himself that the home suited Kevin, old and well-loved. His heart ached a bit but he was not surprised. 

“Yes.”  
“Oh, that’s wonderful! He hasn’t been...He’s not all there anymore so I was worried that…”  
“That sort of thing doesn’t affect you in San Junipero.”  
“Is he very alert? Does he talk a lot?”

Raymond looked into Getrude’s eyes and saw a woman who loved her husband. Who was worried for him, who was heartbroken at the state he was in. He wanted to hate her, just a little bit. Just a little bit for all the years she spent with him and all the pictures of them smiling on the walls but he couldn’t. In fact he somehow loved her too - for loving Kevin so much. For caring so much about him.

“He does. He’s very funny, witty.” She beamed.  
“Yes! He was always so quick. That’s why it was so sad when…” A storm clouds her face for a moment before something inflates her again. “Abigail got her father’s wit. You should have heard the two of them when they got started. They used to sit on the porch and make comments about all the people going by!”

_Look Abigail, you can practically **hear** the lack of parental interference just in the way he walks._

_What about the guy in the muscle car? Overcompensate much?_

_And this one in the backward baseball cap - I suppose it would be no loss to women if his face were to get sunburnt._

_Or maybe it’s part of his ensemble judging by the tag poking out the **front** of his shirt._

_Dear lord those sneakers **scream** ‘I’m going to yell at the waitstaff at TGI Fridays._

Raymond stopped and gazed at a picture displayed on a small table in the hall next to a lamp and a string of pearls. Kevin, slightly older than he was used to seeing him - gray at the temples, hugging a young woman who was proudly displaying a college certificate. Her hair was a ginger-brown and she had the same smile as him, the slight quirk of the lips that made you feel like the two of you were in on some private little joke at someone else’s expense.

Gertrude called from two doors down, “He’s just in here. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you even if he doesn’t...I’ll make you two some tea!”

Kevin sat in a rocking chair with a blanket on his lap. He was facing the window but his eyes were flat and dull as pennies, taking in nothing. Every so often his lips twitched, half-forming a word that he never said. 

Raymond reached out and took his hand, squeezing it slightly. “I don’t hate you.” He told him. He kissed his hand. Kevin kept his eyes out the window. 

“Your wife seems nice. I haven’t seen your daughter but she seems like quite the accomplished woman.” He paused. “You’re not a coward and I don’t hate you.” He looked to see if anyone was coming before quickly giving the other man a peck on the side of his mouth.

“If anything I only love you more.”

Kevin blinked. His hand shook in Raymond’s.  
They waited together then, watching the window. Occasionally Raymond would remark on a bird or comment about the journey there (“The bus driver was reckless.”) and Kevin made a noise in response sometimes but mostly there was a comfortable silence.

The next day was Sunday and Raymond found Kevin on the same bridge, looking down at the ocean. He pulled him into a hug the moment he was close enough and repeated into his ear; _I love you I love you I love you_ until the words grew meaningless and were swallowed up by the sea.

_______________

“I was going to come out you know, decades ago.” Raymond was silent. Kevin rarely talked about his life outside of San Junipero even after months of sporadically visiting at his wife’s insistence. The last time he’d seen him Kevin had waved at the sight of him and for some reason that one sign of recognition had nearly made him turn tail and run from the house that now threatened to collapse on top of him.

Maybe Kevin being so out of it made him seem apart from the house - like he didn’t really live there. It was easier to hear about Gertrude being Kevin’s wife when the only evidence of it was pictures and words. He didn’t have to see Kevin hold her or kiss her or tell her he loved her. Raymond had felt like the scum of the earth.

“I even called Gertrude and told her I wanted to talk to her, I was considering just leaving without telling her but I couldn’t.” Kevin looked up at the sky, black with a thick coat of stars blanketing it.

“She told me that she was pregnant the second she saw me, broke down in tears because she thought I had figured out and was upset - she said I sounded upset over the phone and I…” He turned away from the sky and Raymond, who was sitting in the sand beside him.

“I couldn’t tell her. This was my one chance at a family, that’s what I thought. I thought that it was a sign from God.” Raymond ran his hand through the sand. It was different from sand in real life - fine, with no glass shards or errant sticks to worry about.

“Some days were tortuous - pretending that I was someone else to the people I loved most. Some days I didn’t even think about it, some days I was the happiest man on earth and the next day I would hate myself for that happiness.” Kevin chuckled ruefully. “I really am a coward.”

“Frederick wanted to marry me.”  
Kevin spun around to face the other man, shock written clear on his face. “What?”  
“That day we met - the day before he had asked me to marry him.”  
“And you said-?”  
“I said no, obviously.” He paused as Kevin sagged with relief, sitting down in the sand again. “We’ve been seeing each other off and on our entire lives basically. Grew up on the same block- he was my first kiss.”

Raymond closed his eyes and listened to the waves, felt Kevin’s presence beside him. “Something always stopped me from committing to him though. We fought too much, he tired me. This is the third time...sometimes I think I’m an old fool for turning him down. I should have snatched any bit of happiness I could but something-” He opened his eyes and stopped his sentence short.

Kevin was kneeling in front of him.  
Raymond’s heart began to pound.

“Kevin?” He asked, voice softer than he would have liked for it to be.  
“I hope you’ll forgive me for snatching this particular bit of happiness before you.” Kevin said, voice even except for a very slight tremor that no one but Raymond would ever notice.  
“But I didn’t want to let it pass us by. Raymond, will you marry me?”

A thousand things ran through Raymond’s mind.  
A thousand things to consider.  
A thousand reasons not to.  
And one that stuck, that whispered; You love him. 

“Yes.” Raymond said, nodding and wiping away tears as fast as they could form.  
“Yes?”  
“Yes.”

Kevin held him then, kissing his temple and grinning. He was glowing, he was bubbling over with joy and Raymond was already spilling; Joy was running down his cheeks and joy tasted salty on his tongue as he opened his mouth to laugh. 

“Is this real?” Kevin asked, holding Raymond to his chest. “Is this real?”  
“It’s real.”  
Miles away two men lie in hospital beds across the state from one another. One surrounded by a blonde woman, a bearded man and his sister, the other surrounded by his wife and daughter. Life support beeps steadily. Air is pumped into one man’s lungs. They are hanging on by a thread, they are unaware of their hanging on. 

“What if it all goes away? Turns to pixels and dust? What if you…”  
“It won’t. I won’t.”  
Kevin flinches and holds Raymond tighter, burying his face in his shoulder. “I think it’s almost time. It was ten awhile ago.”  
“You’re going to stay, right?”  
“I can’t-”  
“Not right now but...after. After we pass. You’re going to stay with me aren’t you?”

“I will.”  
“You swear?”  
“I swe-” 

And then the beach was empty once again.  
_______________

Kevin Cozner died first, at 4:30pm on Friday.  
Raymond Holt died the next day at noon.

They were surrounded by friends and family.  
Raymond smiled weakly and told his sister he loved her, told Madeline he’d see her tomorrow (“Or in hell if you prefer.”) and Frederick that he would listen if it was the last time they spoke.

Kevin didn’t say anything, but when his wife kissed his forehead his lips twitched and when his daughter took his hand he squeezed it gently. 

“Are you ready?” The doctor asked them.  
Raymond nodded and Kevin blinked, sighing heavily.

Uploading their consciousnesses took mere seconds. Raymond’s technician was thinking about her lunch break as she did it and Kevin’s was humming without her own knowledge. 

When Kevin opened his eyes in the middle of town he immediately ran to the beach. Raymond wasn’t there and he had to stop his stomach from sinking. _No, no, no. He just wasn’t here yet. It would be fine, it would be fine, don’t panic._

He sat in Raymond’s kitchen and didn’t panic.  
He watched the sun set and didn’t panic.  
He lay in bed awake until the morning came and didn’t panic when Raymond didn’t come with it.

He decided to make tea, unable to sleep and wanting something familiar. The tea still tasted real enough, he was out of his mind with worry. How long would he wait? Until Sunday. Sunday he would be there - permanently or not.

As he sat and drank tea his eyes began to droop. His mind felt so sharp and thoughts were racing through his head faster than they had in a long time, but he was asleep before he could latch onto any of them.

Raymond opened his eyes standing on the bridge and immediately ran home, scanning the beach for signs of Kevin. For a moment he worried that Kevin wouldn’t be there and he would have to wait, time he would surely spend agonizing over when he would arrive and-

Kevin was sitting on the couch, head lolled to the side and an empty mug in his lap.  
“...Kevin?” Raymond sat down beside him and the other man startled slightly, jumping back before seeing that it was him. Then he melted against him, crying.  
“What’s wrong?” Raymond asked, holding him close. He had never seen Kevin cry before and it was strange, it twisted his gut.

“It’s real.” He said, voice soft with awe and astonishment. He had gone through the day in a haze but Raymond’s presence somehow solidified everything. Gave it all weight and meaning. “It’s real.”

Raymond nodded, understanding him. “It is.” He agreed, marveling at the man in his arms and at himself for how much he loved him - for how happy he was at the prospect of years with him, of an eternity together if they wished. “It’s all real.”


End file.
